Democracy and Lobbying in the European Union

Distributed for Campus Verlag

240 pages
|
5-1/2 x 8-3/8

Paper $42.00ISBN: 9783593384122
Published
December 2007

Can interest groups and lobbyists—arguably undemocratic institutions—operate in democratic systems without hindering the people’s interests? Karolina Karr’s Democracy and Lobbying in the European Union explores the role and potential impact of interest groups on democracy, both in theory and practice, in the context of a changing continent. This timely volume explores how the power of interest groups has developed due to the growing distance between elected representatives and the European people and forecasts what this development might mean for the vitality of government.

"A concise theoretical and scholarly analysis of concepts such as democracy, interest groups, common good, consociational democracy, corporatism and pluralism. Specifically, it examines the European Union (EU) system and the workings of democratic principles in that system via various theoretical tools, revealing the consociational system as one of the most important features of the EU system and the democratic deficit as one of its most serious problems. . . . The book will be attractive to scholars and students of European Studies in particular and political science in general."

2 Interest groups2.1 The common good2.2 Systems of interest intermediation2.3 Interest group terminology and systematics2.3.1 Interest groups and lobbies, intermediation and lobbying2.3.2 Classification of interest groups2.3.3 Addressees2.3.4 Methods and resources

3 Legitimacy and boundaries of interest representation in democracy

II The European Union

4 Democracy in the European Union4.1 The democratic deficit in perspective4.1.1 Challenges to the normative model4.1.2 Institutional backdrop and the EU policy process4.1.3 Alleviating the democratic deficit4.2 The consociational system

4.2.1 Multi-level governance and policy networks4.3 New challenges4.3.1 May 2004 enlargement and beyond4.3.2 Establishing a constitution for Europe